Instruction Without Practice Is Like Reading the Comics

Whether it’s golf, computer programming, or learning to drive a car, anytime you try to acquire a new skill, you’ll need to practice.  Instruction without practice is like reading the comics.  You enjoy it at the time, but don’t retain much in the form of long term benefit.  If you’re a dedicated player, one of the great things about taking a series of golf lessons is that it forces you into beneficial regular practice.  As I re-engage in regular practice, I’m reminded of a few pointers to make the best use of your time.

1. Find a quiet isolated spot; it improves concentration.  Approach like Vijay Singh.  He has it right when he sets up alone down at the end of the driving range.  Unless you’re the type who could do your homework with the TV blaring, you’re better off in solitary.  Hitting balls at Top Golf with your friends or on the simulator at Dave and Busters is fun but is not practice.  Nor is working one stall over from the dad trying to give his young son well-meaning but awful swing advice.  Focus on your task at hand.
2.  Move slowly through your basket of balls.  Ever see the range rat raking ball after ball, never changing clubs, and hitting one every 15 seconds – usually with the driver?  Don’t be that guy.  If you want a cardio workout, go to the gym.  Warm up slowly and start with a wedge, making small swings.  Resist the temptation to quickly hit another ball after a bad shot.  Think through your miss and attempted correction.  Rushing will only get you tired and frustrated.
3. Bring your rangefinder and use it.  Hit at specific targets and change them often; it will help you to concentrate and stay fresh.  This one is difficult because you’re most likely working on swing mechanics, but never forget golf is a target-oriented game.  Often, if your swing is somewhat grooved, just focusing on the target will free your body from your mind and allow you to perform your best.
4. When you finish full swing practice, go putt for 20-30 minutes.  Putting is a simple repeated stroke that doesn’t require much physical effort.  It’s a wonderful way to cool down and is also 40% of the shots you’ll take during a normal round.  Draining putts is always beneficial to your game.  If your range session was less than satisfactory, it can take the edge off and remind you that getting the ball in the hole is the objective of all your hard work.  Don’t confuse putting after full swing with short game practice.  This putting is just about seeing the ball go in the hole.  Short game practice (chipping, pitching, putting, and bunker play) should have a completely different time block allocated, and is often more time consuming than full swing.
5. Keep playing golf – it’s important to stay engaged with the objectives of the game.  Shooting at targets, getting rewarded for good shots and penalized for bad, and working on your course management.  While you’re trying to make swing changes, this can be very difficult.  You need to persevere and not beat yourself up over some bad scores.  Know that the more you play AND practice together, it will elevate your overall performance.  Plus, when you pull off those shots you’ve been working on during practice, it’s a great feeling.

There you have it.  These tips are working for me and I hope they do for you.  Right now, I’m off to the practice tee.

Play well!

Does Tiger Deserve to keep Playing?

In 2011, Peyton Manning underwent surgery for a pinched nerve in his neck and missed the entire NFL season.  Many questioned his ability to continue his career.  The Denver Broncos took a chance on him and two years later, at 37, he threw a NFL record 55 touchdown passes.  Two years after that, he threw nine touchdowns and 17 interceptions, and despite winning the Super Bowl, had clearly lost the physical ability to compete.  He rode off into the sunset and now drinks Budweiser and happily pitches Papa Johns pizza.

photo from Getty

Tiger Woods is one year older than Manning, and their professional careers came of age in roughly the same time period (1997-1998).  Woods is now 41.  Plagued by injuries and psychological foibles he fell from 2nd to 218th in the FedEx standings in 2014 and has done nothing since, except fill his fans with false hope.  Why he continues to play is anyone’s guess, but does he deserve to continue?

If Tiger was in Manning’s shoes, he’d be out.  We often think of golf as the ultimate meritocracy sport but is it?  The answer is still “Yes.”  Tiger earned his place in any field he wants to play in, just as any player with 20 career wins and an active 15-year Tour membership can claim.  Tiger actually still qualifies from his PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP victory in the last five years, but soon he’ll be on the 15-20 list.  Ever wonder why Tom Watson, at 67, occasionally shows up in a PGA Tour event?  He’s on the same exemption list.  Vijay Singh too.  Go here to check out the players that are exempt.  It’s updated daily.

Like it or not, successful PGA Tour events are staged when the tournament sponsor makes money.  Sponsors need those big names to draw crowds and television viewers.  That’s why they are granted exemptions for tournament entrants.  If Tiger is in the field and hacking, people are still watching.  So if better players are shut out of the field, so be it.  The difference is in football, you have a contract, you’re on a team, and you get paid.  If you can no longer perform, you get no contract and are finished.  In golf, you still have a chance.

As long as the current PGA Tour revenue model remains the same, we need that 15-20 exemption list and sponsor’s exemptions to drive attendance and positive viewership.  Guys like David Duval (45) hung on much longer than Tiger.  Duval did absolutely nothing for an entire decade.  Other guys like Ian Baker-Finch knew when they lost it and quit fast.  Tiger Woods should continue to play as long as he likes.  It might get ugly, but shoot, I’ll still be watching.  How about you; think we are good or do we need a change to the exemption rules?

How Do You Set Your Goals?

How do you set your performance goals? Conventional thinking is that goals should be SMART:

• Specific.
• Measurable.
• Attainable.
• Relevant.
• Time Bound.

I usually come up with SMART goals for the season that center around achieving a specific scoring average, reducing number of putts, improving my GIR, etc., and I suspect yours look similar. But what about that secret goal you keep in the back of your mind that you’re afraid to publish because you might not get there. Should you put it out there? Don’t be afraid; do it! Everyone has these “stretch goals” and if you clearly envision them and formulate your improvement roadmap to hit them, even if they are long term and seemingly out of reach, you’ll ultimately feel more in control of your destiny and can take a more methodical approach and weather the inevitable ups and downs. And oh baby, if you hit them, watch out!

My new stretch goal, is to sustain a period of excellence over a short burst of time that tells me, I can still play to the level that I once did when I played my best. Specifically, the goal is to repeat a scenario I experienced once in my life in the mid-1990s when I played three straight rounds on three straight days at par or better. I was in the “Zone” for all three rounds and have never come close since then. Playing one round in the Zone is fabulous, but three in a row was incredible. I’m thinking of this because I tasted the Zone last week for a brief five-hole stretch, and loved it. Despite the quick exit, the touch has me juiced and motivated.

Changing your stretch goal because of current circumstances or the realities of life is fine as well. I try to keep my SMART goals in the current season (Time Bound), but the stretch goal is elastic. For example: In 2011, my stretch goal was to lower my handicap to zero from five. The lowest it had ever been was between a 1 and 2 back when I was in my 20s and playing a lot more golf than I do now. Was that a reasonable stretch goal? Maybe, but I quickly learned that a working desk jockey playing 35 rounds a year in his mid-50s and practicing once per week wasn’t going to hit pay dirt, so I adjusted. I am modeling after a guy on tour who is two years my junior (Vijay Singh). There is nobody more dedicated to improvement and excellence, but the truth is, Vijay cannot play as well as he did 10 years ago no matter how long he practices and how badly he wants to compete. I’m not telling Vijay to quit, and I love it when he goes low for a short stretch like he did at Northern Trust, but I don’t expect him to win a regular tour event any more.

So hopefully I will be entering the “Vijay Zone.” Perhaps a place where no man has gone before. Do you have a secret stretch goal?  Care to share?

Is your warm-up a coffee and a doughnut?

Ever go to a PGA tournament and watch the best players in the world warm-up?  I will park myself at the range for hours and marvel at the machine-like ball striking consistency of a Vijay Singh

Vijay warming up

or the effortless rhythm of a Fred Couples.  Vijay typically warms up with alignment sticks laid out all over the ground, umbrellas stuck in the turf to guide his swing plane, head covers under his armpits, and training aids sprinkled around his station at the ready.  You wonder how the guy gets ready to play with all the mechanical input.  We weekend players love to emulate our heroes on tour but you need to be very careful when it comes to copying their warm-ups.  These guys typically get to the course two hours before their round and condition their bodies and every aspect of their game before play.  We don’t have that luxury.  Usually we grab a coffee and a doughnut and do nothing, or throw on our shoes in the parking lot and rush to the first tee, or buy a bucket of range balls, pound 30 drivers and roll a few putts before heading out.  I’ve tried ’em all and none of them work.

Last year I thought I had this whipped when I tried a new warm-up routine and followed it up with a great round, but soon discovered the routine wasn’t extensible enough to support different practice facilities and different amounts of time.  I can’t count the number of times that I’ve either played with no warm-up or tried to warm-up sensibly and still stumbled out of the blocks.  How frustrating is it when you always need to play three holes to fully engage the golf circuits?

In 2013 I’m determined to find the perfect warm-up routine that will:

1)  put me in the best frame of mind

2)  put me in the best physical condition

3)  have me looking good doing it (got to avoid the Miguel Angel Jimenez  10-200 scenario.)

So coming soon are two warm-up routines constructed from a combination of exercises out of my workout regimen, and from trial and error at the golf course.  Look for the:

A)  Economy warm-up (10 minutes)

B)  Business Class warm-up (30-60 minutes)

Send me your ideas to help move this along and I’ll try the good ones.  Thanks!